Spence-Porter: Benavidez’ll steal Errol’s show again

By Bart Barry-

Saturday on a “FOX Sports is proud to present PBC
Pay-Per-View events” event in Los Angeles welterweight titlists Errol “The
Truth” Spence and “Showtime” Shawn Porter will vie for Spence’s number-one Ring
rating without jeopardizing Terence Crawford’s number-two pound-for-pound
rating in a match between two good guys whose disparity in talent should
preclude anything too thrilling from happening. 
Fans of thrilling talent should look to Saturday’s comain.

Because the most interesting talent on the card is
WBC super middleweight titlist David Benavidez, an uncharacteristically ascendant
PBC asset.  Spence may be the greater
talent, and well may not be, but he is not intriguing as Benavidez, not after getting
outdone by Benavidez in March.

We probably have seen the best of Spence.  While Manny Pacquiao (along with Floyd
Mayweather) is the greatest talent ever to fight on a PBC card – a sentence
likely to hold up, still, in 2030 – he is far too old to make someone of
Spence’s age and size improve.  Pacquiao
undressed Keith Thurman a few months ago, sure, but does anyone think Thurman
will be better for it?  Pacquiao wants no
part of Spence, either, because of the youngster’s physicality; Pacquiao, way
way smarter than we realized in his prime, knows someone big and vigorous as
Errol can do a lot of things wrong and still win, and there’s no dissuading him
with activity.

There’s dissuading Spence with inactivity, as
Mikey Garcia showed us at Cowboys Stadium (we go with birth names, round here) but
not with an attack.  It’s a reason Porter
hasn’t much of a chance Saturday, but we’ll be back to that below.

PBC hasn’t the stable or matchmaking acumen to
keep Spence on an upward trajectory. 
Spence would be improved by a fight with Bud Crawford, who’s small
enough to see his craft advantage offset, and an eventual move to 160 via 154,
but none of those things will happen in Spence’s prime.  Not while Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman and
Alfredo Angulo haunt the FOX Sports airwaves. 

Which is, in its way, a tragedy.  PBC didn’t really know what it had with
Spence, but soon as it did, it got cautious as could be, feeding him a b-level
vet, a hopeless lad named Ocampo and then a former featherweight.  Subsequently Spence has not felt a punch in
28 months.  That’s no way to season a
prime talent. 

Which is why Benavidez is the most interesting man
on Saturday’s card.  PBC still hasn’t
much of an idea what he is or what to do with him.  None of us has.  Benavidez is loose in the midsection, failed
a VADA test a couple years ago, and Dr?ma adorns his coat of arms.  But he is a natural, and sneaky-ascendant
because he doesn’t look the part.

Our beloved sport’s myriad of hyperbolists begin
their marketability prejudging with criteria borrowed from the late Hugh
Hefner.  Benavidez once was obese, and
extra skin is a mortal no-no.  In this
sense Benavidez is a bit like boxing’s version of golfer John Daly, whose obesity
and publicized vices allowed his sport’s hypemen to overlook Daly’s singular
athleticism.

Really, who the hell ever mistook a rotund
chainsmoker for a great athlete?  I
suppose I just did. 

Next time you see a golf club, or even a heavy
stick, try to get it to the place Daly gets his backswing while keeping your
feet planted.  Never mind maintaining
that balance long enough to hit a ball, never ever mind doing it the exact same
way at age 53 as you did at 23; just try to get your body in that position –
then imagine doing it drunk in front of 50,000 spectators.

Benavidez’s comain foe, Anthony Dirrell, is no
one’s idea of an ascendant asset, but he is a veteran prizefighter who is proud
and has spent his entire career at the same weightclass.  He’s not the better athlete in his family,
but he is the better fighter.  He will
test Benavidez’s will. And that is precisely the test a fighter like Benavidez
needs to improve.

Will Showtime Shawn test Errol’s will?  A bit, yes. 
But barring a sprained ankle or Fan Man type of event Porter hasn’t much
of a chance.  Which is too bad because
Porter is a guy to cheer for.  He’s joyful,
humble, buffoonish, happy, fun.  His
efforts to play an antagonist generally go nowhere because he likes the guys he
makes punches with (when he and Spence “trash-talked” one another before Pacquiao
embarrassed Thurman, Porter couldn’t stay in character long enough to get his
lines right, and both men came off more endearing than fearsome).

Which is a winding path to writing this:
Saturday’s mainevent won’t be very good. 
Styles make fights – have you heard? – and Spence and Porter have
similar styles.  And Spence is better at
every facet of that style, so much so that we miss how similarly he and Porter
are as stylists (too, Porter has been matched much less sympathetically than
Spence lately, which makes Porter look like a flailing volume guy while some
aspiring aficionados might’ve once mistaken Spence for a power-puncher).

I can forgive myself for admitting a year ago
I’d’ve picked Spence to ruin Porter in 10 rounds or fewer.  But Spence’s slap-and-tickle contest with
Garcia weighs heavily on such predictions now. 
Porter should look about twice Garcia’s size and girth swimming his way
towards Spence, Saturday, and we’re not altogether certain how well Spence
fights off his backfoot, are we?  But
lest we forget, boxing’s clown pauper, AB, dropped Porter flat in the final
minutes of their 2015 contest, and one must believe at 147 pounds Spence hits
much much harder than About Billions.

I’ll take Spence, UD-12, in a match not even Ray
Mancini can call a candidate for fight of the year.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry